OpenAI’s getting richer

OpenAI is in talks for a new funding round that could value the company over $100 billion. That would cement it as the fourth-most-valuable privately held company in the world, only behind ByteDance ($220 billion), Ant Group ($150 billion), and SpaceX ($125 billion).

Thrive Capital is leading the venture round, but Microsoft is expected to add to its existing $13 billion stake in the company. Apple and Nvidia, are also discussing investing in the ChatGPT maker. Nvidia supplies chips that OpenAI uses to train and run its models while Apple is integrating ChatGPT in its forthcoming Apple Intelligence system that'll feature on new iPhones.

OpenAI was last valued at around $80 billion in 2023 following a funding round that allowed employees to sell their existing shares. It’s unclear whether the company is currently considering an initial public offering, but if it needs tons of capital for the very costly process of developing increasingly powerful AI models, that might be a necessary step in the not-so-distant future.